Rainbow Whole Fruit Popsicles Recipe (No Sugar Added)

photo © EatLocalGrown (with permission)

You know how hard it is to find something that your kids will love AND it’s super healthy?

Introducing the rainbow fruit popsicle – which is fun to make, brightly colored, super delicious and only uses pure fruit – no added sugars, artificial colorings, no artificial anything! So it packs a health punch at the same time as keeping your loved ones (adults too!) away from other more “evil” foods…

What You Will Need for this delicious adventure is:

About 2 kiwis
1 cup strawberry halves
1 cup roughly chopped mango
1 cup blueberries
1 cup roughly chopped watermelon
1 cup rough chopped pineapple

Popsicle molds.

Plus that ever-important item… a little patience.

You can, of course, improvise with other fruit if you should feel so inclined. I’m already imagining striped ones with raspberries and blueberries… make whatever layers you like!

The recipe recommends a food processor to puree the fruit – but you can still do it if you don’t have one; you will just need to mash the fruit using a bowl and fork.

The greatest challenge here is that it takes time because each layer needs to freeze before you add the next layer. So it’s advisable to make a bigger batch of these in one go if you can.

Instructions

1) Working with one fruit at a time, puree in a small food processor. Rinse the machine out between fruits.

2) Carefully spoon a layer of fruit at the bottom of each popsicle mold. Gently rap the mold on a firm surface to level the puree. Freeze until solid.

3) Spoon another layer of fruit into each mold and stand a stick upright in each. Force it down gently into the frozen bottom layer so it will stand up straight. You are not going to use the plastic top for this recipe, just leave it off. Again firmly tap the mold down on the counter to level the puree and freeze again until the second layer is solid. (The freezing time between layers will vary with your freezer temp, but it might take 45 minutes or so)

4) Continue on until you have filled the molds. If any of the purees are a little too thick to work with, stir in a little water. Clean up any spilled puree from the insides of the molds as you go so they won’t mar your design, just scrape the drips down with a popsicle stick.

5) To un-mold, fill your sink with hot tap water, and hold the mold in the water, just up to, but not over the top edge, for a few seconds. If the popsicles don’t slide out, hold the mold in the water a little longer.

Note – The fruit amounts are approximate, depending on your mold you may need a little more or a little less. You can always add a little water or yogurt to stretch the amount. My popsicle mold has 10 slots and each slot holds about a 1/2 cup of liquid.

In a similar fashion you can also make pure fruit ice cubes (click for tutorial), which are stellar with drinks / cocktails etc. You could use empty ice cube trays to make these up with any leftover fruit after filling your possible molds.

Article with permission from Rick D